Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) - Review

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a sequel to 2007's Ghost Rider, also starring Nicolas Cage. Years after the first movie, Johnny Blaze has fled to Romania to keep from hurting people with the power of the Ghost Rider. He is found by a monk, Moreau (Idris Elba), who asks him to track and keep safe a child, Danny (Fergus Riordan) from Roarke (Ciarán Hinds), the current incarnation of Mephistopheles on Earth. This requires Blaze to utilize the Ghost Rider's powers once more in order to stop Roarke's plan to use Danny as a suitable vessel to continue roaming Earth.

For better and for worse, this movie takes a completely different direction than that of its predecessor. While Ghost Rider (2007) focused on story and motivation, Spirit of Vengeance tilts the script focusing more on action elements. The camerawork and the flow of action are phrenetic and unpredictable, trying to mirror the psychological aspects of Cage's Johnny Blaze and the consequences of him shutting the Ghost Rider away for extended periods of time. This too has its benefits and negatives: the benefit is that you get to see the Ghost Rider more than in the previous movie, acting more like a vigilante anti-hero than the previous attempt to establish him as a hero, full stop. The negatives of the discordant on-screen elements is that it does speed the movie along quite a bit. By a little before halfway done, I had felt that the story was reaching its conclusions, only to find out that it had not only been 40 minutes, but there was quite a bit left in the tank. If the first half of the movie is Johnny Blaze fighting the Ghost Rider, then the second half of the movie is Johnny accepting the Ghost Rider before he gives it up for good with the help of Moreau and his eclectic band of desert monks - a group that includes Christopher Lambert as the leader of the monks. The acting of everyone involved is fun throughout the whole movie; everyone knows that the Ghost Rider is silly and goofy in practical ways of expressing it on film, and everyone just has fun with their roles. Cage has moments that still follow me to this day: when my wife told me she wanted to watch the first Ghost Rider, I left shortly afterwards to collect our mutual friend so that we could have the viewing experience we did - as mentioned in the Ghost Rider (2007) review . On my drive, the phrase, "Scratching at the door" came to mind. This was a repressed phrase from when I had seen the movie last, as Johnny Blaze threatens a low-level goon with the Ghost Rider  and delivers a rare, but well worth Cage explosion, so to speak. Idris Elba's Moreau just really has no cares in the world, despite the consequences of this mission failing, and continues to be thinking several steps ahead assuring Johnny Blaze that things will truly work out in the end while pushing him to do the things that only Blaze can do as the Ghost Rider. 

The Ghost Rider, in both of its presentations on film, has always been concerned about redemption. This manifests itself in Johnny trying to rid himself of what he sees as a curse, but Moreau trying to give Johnny hope that he is not bound by the dark forces of the demon that plagues him. The two movies, taken together, give a complete character arc for Blaze and his coming to terms with the Ghost Rider's powers as a force that can be used for good instead of evil. The introduction in the beginning of the movie serves as a way for the series to rebrand itself, losing the trappings of the previous movie by rewriting the flow of events of the origin of the anti-hero, but also writing out any remaining ties from the old movie to this one. In this way, Spirit of Vengeance acts as a reboot and sequel. If you could keep yourself from watching the previous movie, you absolutely can. However, I think that regardless of whether you skipped Ghost Rider or watched them both, there is still going to be some disappointment with the results of Spirit of Vengeance. Despite being more action-packed, lively, and deal more with the consequences of being the Ghost Rider, the movie fails to fan into flame a warmness to the series continuing. Despite being better than the previous movie, Spirit of Vengeance is best viewed with tempered expectations.